It was dark in the mountain passage, and cold. Images of the passing terrain blinked before me like pages in a book, turned before my eyes could focus on the print. Only torches lit our way as we quick-walked. Ropes of ice twined and coiled down the stone walls. Horses’ breath stood out in plumes of steam. The Speck warriors, unnaturally bundled in furs and wool against the cold, walked awkwardly on the slick ground. The waterway that had gurgled to one side of the passage the last time I had traversed this pass was frozen solid.
The sounds of our passage came in pieces. Creak of leather and clop of hooves and resounding echoes were stuttered with silence. Murmurs of complaint from the men and the occasional harsh laugh or curse. The distant crash of a falling icicle, big as a man. Soldier’s Boy’s army was on the march toward Gettys and slaughter.
He had kept his word to Olikea. Scarcely three days had passed since they had gathered around the fire to discuss Likari’s fate. The events of the following days had occurred so swiftly that whenever I thought of it my mind spun. Jodoli and Soldier’s Boy had called a meeting with Kinrove and Dasie. Both of the other Great Ones had been startled by their demands for immediate action. The Specks, I discovered, dreaded cold, and both Kinrove and Dasie argued against the wisdom of sending their warriors forth to fight their first battle in such an alien environment. But Soldier’s Boy had prevailed, pointing out truthfully that if they struck now, the deep cold of winter would do half their work for them. He spoke earnestly of burning the supply houses and barracks and as many homes and stores as would catch fire. In detail, he explained how the intruders’ food supplies would perish, along with the tools and the men who could use them. Destroy the ability of the Gettys folk to rebuild, and they must either flee back down the King’s Road into the barren winter weather and impassable snows or stay where they were, to freeze and starve. Either way, the cold would make an end of them, decreasing the work for the warriors.
Convincing them to attack immediately was only half the battle. Demanding that all four of the Great Ones should be involved in the battle shocked the rest of them. He set out his plans succinctly. Jodoli and Kinrove would go no farther than the mountain pass. Their key contribution would be spending magic to quick-walk the entire force from the rainy side of the mountains westward through the draw and then swiftly down to the low-lying hills that surrounded Gettys. He needed them for that task. Moving at a normal pace, his forces would quickly be both discouraged and thinned by the inhospitable weather. I knew his hidden thought. If any of his soldiers considered deserting along the way, they would be faced with a long, cold journey home, unaugmented by the magical speed of a quick-walk.
Once the force had reached the western side of the mountains, Soldier’s Boy had planned that he and Dasie would command the battle itself. They would go on horseback, mounted for a better view of the action and to allow both of them to keep up with their troops. Dasie’s fire magic skills would be required, as would his knowledge of the layout of the town and the fort. Soldier’s Boy had decided that his horse soldiers were too small a force to deploy as cavalla. Instead, the horses would carry supplies and perhaps the mounted riders would serve as messengers to coordinate the troops during the battle.
The Specks had no experience with the sort of warfare that involved coordinated troop movements and warriors obeying a single commander. Every step of it had to be explained. Soldier’s Boy had talked and talked and talked. Kinrove did not wish to be involved in quick-walking the troops. He wished to stay with his dancers. Soldier’s Boy insisted on it. “Our warriors are not accustomed to the cold. I think they can sustain a brief journey through it, and a night of fighting, but beyond that, the cold will eat at their stamina. If the cavalla troops at Gettys rally against us, we will be fighting seasoned soldiers who are tolerant of those conditions. If I must take the troops through the snow for days before we even close with the enemy, they will lose heart before they even fire an arrow.” Looking from Jodoli to Kinrove, he said, “And you know that I do not have the strength to quick-walk such a force on my own. Dasie and I will require your help if we are to deliver a force capable of an attack on Gettys.”
He was willing to admit that they had strength he needed, knowing that such an admission would all but force them to help him, simply to prove their own strengths. He did not admit to them that he relished the idea of seeing the Great Men in discomfort. But I lived in him, behind his eyes, and I knew. They had both bested him in magic. Now he would show them what he was best at, and force them to be present at his victory. Soldier’s Boy wanted both to see, if not the battle, our warriors as they returned from it. He would have them witness the difficulty and the dangers of fighting a real war. He did not feel they grasped the reality of that, and for a reason he could not explain even to himself, he felt that they needed to.
I wondered if Soldier’s Boy himself did. I wondered if I did. I had never seen battle. I’d read of it, been schooled to it, heard tales of the blood and smoke all my life. Yet here I was, riding mutely along to my first engagement, leading troops against the very country that had created me. The knowledge of that crazed me, if I dwelt on it. I held myself back from thinking of it, and focused my thoughts only on what I knew I might be able to save. I did not think I could stop the attack or the massacre that would follow. I might be able to preserve a few of the people I loved.
I tried to be small and forgotten in Soldier Boy’s mind. I uttered no sound of rebuke or dismay as I witnessed him marshaling his troops. They were armed, not with guns, for the iron of the barrels and actions would disrupt our magic, but with bows, spears, pikes, and, in plentiful supply, with pitch torches. His four chosen archers carried the fire-arrows and their loads. Dasie was good at the calling of fire. She would be the one to kindle the flames when the time was right. And Soldier’s Boy was to be in the thick of it, leading his troops right into Gettys and directing his cowardly attack against the sleeping foe.
And so I rode with him those last horrid days, watching him plot and plan against my people. My people. His traitorous words had found fertile soil in me and were, despite my resolve, sending down bitter roots. “My people” had disowned me and attempted to kill me. “My people” had not been able to see past the changes the Speck plague had wrought in me to realize I was the same Nevare I had always been. “My people” had no respect for the Specks who had taken me in, no interest in learning why they so vigorously defended their forest, and no intention of letting the Specks preserve their way of life. When I dwelt on those things, it was hard for me to say why I remained so fiercely loyal to a people who had no connection at all to me. Yet when those traitorous doubts came to me, all I had to do was focus my thoughts on Spink and Epiny and the woman and children they had sheltered for me, and my determination to undermine Soldier’s Boy’s plans came roaring back to life.
But now, as the blinking images of the narrow defile became darker as the mountains leaned closer to one another overhead, I knew my time was trickling away. When they reached the western mouth of the pass, the plan was to camp for one night, to allow both warriors and mages to rest. Then on the morrow the mages would quick-walk the entire force down to the forest of the ancients. From there, after the brief day ended and the vise of cold night clenched, we would attack Gettys and the sleeping population.
Tonight would be my last chance to try to warn Epiny and Spink.
Riding along inside Soldier’s Boy on such an extended quick-walk gave me the same queasy, headachy sensation of riding in a jolting wagon all day. Jodoli and Kinrove imposed the magic on us, so I had no sensation of knowing when each stop or each flow would begin. I’m only along for the ride, I told myself and huddled small inside Soldier’s Boy.
I’d had one small triumph in my ongoing battle with him. I hadn’t let him make contact with Lisana. He missed her as if the heart had been torn from his chest. I’d tried to bargain with him once. “Dream-walk me to Epiny one night, and the following night, I’ll take you to Lisana.”
“I should dream-walk you to the enemy, so you can reveal our plans? No.”
“Then you shall not see or speak to Lisana,” I told him coldly. And despite how he had squeezed and poked at me, I had retained my resolve. My memories might be his to rifle and sift, but my ability to reach Lisana remained firmly in my control. And he foolishly believed, since I had sought that bargain, that dream-walking to Epiny still belonged solely to him.
I watched the glimpses of our journey flicker past. Torches had been kindled, more for the sake of calming the horses and warriors than because we needed them. We relied on Jodoli’s and Kinrove’s memories of this passage, memories they reinforced by drawing on the magic. Each brief glimpse was like a framed painting in some peculiar gallery. Here the walls of the divide sparkled silver and black with ice and stone. In the next, my attention was directed to some carvings of trees and faces that some long-ago travelers had etched into the walls of the pass.
We did not ride. We led the horses, and long before our day’s journey was over, my feet were sore and my back ached. The other Great Ones had chosen to be transported in litters; Soldier’s Boy’s pride had not allowed him that option. It had been months since I had demanded exertion of my body. Soldier’s Boy had allowed the underlying muscle I had cultivated with my endless grave digging to lapse. I knew he would deeply regret that tomorrow when he had to mount Clove. Although I would share his pain, I privately rejoiced that it would distract him from the business of command. I had not warned him of this. It was a tiny advantage I could offer to the Gernian cavalla. They would never know of it, but even that small thing might make a crucial difference when the time came.
Time, I had come to know, is a tricky thing. Although we traveled much more swiftly when we were quick-walked through the pass, I was still aware of each stage of the journey, and hence at the end I felt as weary as if I had miraculously walked the whole distance in a single day. As indeed, I had.
That weariness was a sentiment shared by many. Firewood was scavenged and Dasie moved among us, bringing the fires to life for us. Although Kinrove and Jodoli had gorged themselves the previous day, the effort of quick-walking the force had depleted their reserves. They kept their feeders busy preparing and serving to them the food the horses had carried. Most of the Specks had never traveled through deep cold, let alone camped in it. Olikea made no complaint, a clear sign of how deeply she was mired in her sadness. We made our night’s shelter in the covered part of the pass. Shallow snow had blown into the mouth of the cavernlike entry. Some tried to sweep it away with evergreen boughs, while others used the boughs to make beds that would lift their bodies slightly off the frozen ground. Soldier’s Boy had counseled them to bring woolen blankets and furs, so most were provided for, but even so, they would pass a cold night.
For all of the Great Ones, there were thick mounds of evergreen boughs overlaid with furs and warm blankets. Quantities of food had been transported, both for the warriors and the mages. As the evening deepened and the cold crept closer, the fires were fed until they became bonfires and the food a feast. There were drawbacks to this; the icy ground around the bonfires thawed and became wet. The bundled Specks in their fur-lined cloaks and deep hoods overheated and then, as they disrobed, chilled themselves. There was drink, too, brought along to ward off the cold, and all the more potent at the end of the long day’s travel. None of the Great Ones kept the warriors from indulging. All this I watched silently and knowingly, and listened in, as the Great Ones finalized their plans for tomorrow night’s attack.
It was late before the last of them slept. Soldier’s Boy went to his bed weary from both travel and talk, and anxious for the morrow. Olikea curled around his back. Weariness soon claimed her. He closed his eyes and composed himself but sleep would not come. He went to battle a virgin to war, and yet he felt that, of the Great Ones, he had the clearest idea of what they would face on the morrow. He agonized over it. Would he acquit himself well or would he take his warriors into useless deaths? Whatever would come, he wanted to face it and have it be over. I had seen their plans and recognized that much of what he had chosen to do was exactly what I would have selected, were I ruthlessly bent on annihilating an enemy that had not yielded to any other tactics. I watched him, a darker shade of myself, the product of my father’s and the Academy’s teachings, and yes, of the hatred that such teachings had roused in the Specks. I had to marvel in horror at what happened when such a system was turned back on itself.
Then, deliberately, I began to consider every aspect of what might go bad for him tomorrow. I thought long and in detail of the men who had chilled their muscles, and of the strong drink that had been consumed. I thought of the depth of snow that awaited them, the trails that must be broken. Quick-walk was quick-walk; it could speed up how we traversed terrain but could not eliminate the challenges of it. I dwelt on his inexperienced horsemen and the poor quality of their tack. Dasie’s mount was a cart horse, chosen solely because he could carry her weight; her mount had little experience as a saddle horse and she had even less experience as a rider. I imagined for him all of the mishaps that could arise from that combination. Into this equation, I factored his ignorance of the command of the fort now. He was counting on the sentries to be slack and the night guard but half awake.
I deliberately fed his fears and kept him from sleep long after the others had subsided into snoring. And then, when his frazzled mind had worn itself out with snapping at possible disasters, I withdrew. He sank swiftly toward sleep and I did all I could to make his rest as deep as possible. I soothed and calmed him from the edges of his thoughts, and as soon as I felt him sink deeper than the level of dreams, I acted.
Tapping into his magic was the most delicate part. He and the other Great Ones had spent the last two days fortifying their reserves, eating only the foods most conducive to their tasks. Soldier’s Boy, I knew, was jealously aware that he had still not regained the size he had enjoyed before I had expended all his magic in my futile attack on the road, but in this last bout of eating, he had surpassed Jodoli. His height and bone structure gave him a clear advantage over Dasie at any time; her body simply could not carry the weight that his could. Kinrove had rapidly regained his size, the result of a dedicated team of experienced feeders. Nonetheless, Kinrove and Jodoli had insisted that their reserves would be taxed by the transporting of the army as well as its safe retrieval. They had warned Dasie and Soldier’s Boy to hoard strength lest part of that task fall on them as well.
Like a tiny tick, I sucked off the magic until I felt my awareness was saturated, then bloated with the stuff. I withdrew from Soldier’s Boy’s awareness as far as I could and then sent a needle-sharp thought questing for Epiny.
I could not find her.
For a heart-stopping moment, I wondered if she were dead. She had not seemed in the best of health when last I saw her, dragged down by both her pregnancy and the sorrow and anxiety she felt over me. Gettys was a rough and primitive place for a genteelly raised woman to give birth to her first child. I had been glad to know that Amzil would be there at her side, but although Amzil had attended other births, she was not a doctor or a midwife. I tried to count back and decide where Epiny would be in her pregnancy, but time had slid about so much for me recently that I could not decide if she would still be pregnant or a new mother by now.
I gave way to the impulse of my heart and reached for Amzil. I found her just as effortlessly as I had the first time I’d dream-walked to her. This time I was wiser. I approached her more slowly and gently. “Amzil. Amzil, can you hear me? It’s Nevare.”
I knew she was there, but some sort of murkiness obscured her. I reached desperately through it. “Amzil? Amzil, please! Hear me. Hear my warning.” But beyond the fog that cloaked her mind, I encountered only the same wall she’d shown me last time. She’d shut me out of her dreams, resolved to go on living without me. I could not blame her; she’d learned too well to rely on her own strength. I could not get through the defenses that kept her strong. Epiny, then. I would have to find Epiny if they were to be warned.
I mustered my stolen magic and reached out more strongly for my cousin. There was a long moment of doubt, of empty, endless reaching and then a startled, “Oh!” from somewhere in the other world.
“Epiny? Epiny, please be there, please hear me. I have only a short time, and the warning I have for you is dire.”
“Nevare?” Her voice was faint, yet thick as syrup. She did not sleep and dream, but neither did she feel awake to me. I saw nothing from her eyes, sensed little of her surroundings. She was warm. That was all I could tell.
“Epiny. Are you all right? Are you ill?”
“Nevare. I’m sorry. I couldn’t name the baby after you. She’s a girl. A girl can’t be Nevare.”
“No. Of course not. Is she well? Are you well?” The baby was not what I wished to speak about, but I hoped that as Epiny spoke of her, my sense of Epiny would come clearer. It didn’t work as well as I had hoped. I felt a tiny warm body under Epiny’s hand. The baby was bundled close to her.
“She’s so sweet. And quiet. She doesn’t cry much. We named her Solina. Do you think that’s a pretty name?”
“Solina is a lovely name. Epiny. I know you are tired, but listen to me. Great danger is coming. The Specks are massing for an attack. Late tomorrow night, they will descend on the fort, with fire and arrows. They hope to destroy the fort and the town with fire, but also to kill as many people as they can. You must warn everyone to be on their guard.”
“I have so much to tell you,” she replied dreamily. “It’s lovely to know that you are still alive. Lovely. We wondered how you were doing. Oh, I had that one dream of you, of course, but that was months ago. When the fear stopped, that was so nice. I wondered, did Nevare do that? Then I wondered if it meant you were dead.” She took a deep breath and sighed it out again. Thick tendrils of mist seemed to rise with her sigh. The warmth and comfort of where she was billowed around us and threatened to engulf me. I resisted it with difficulty.
“Epiny, what’s wrong with you? Did you hear anything I told you? An attack is coming and you must warn everyone.” She made no response and I spoke more sharply. “Epiny! What ails you?”
“Laudanum.” She sighed. “Nevare, I know it’s not good for me. But it’s lovely. For a while, the fear went away. And the sadness. It was like waking from a dream. I got up one morning and wondered, why have I let this house be such a dreary space? And I started scrubbing and dusting, and then I was humming at my work. And Amzil came in. She said I was making my nest. Such a lovely notion. And she helped me clean and make my room brighter and prepare a place for the baby.”
“I’m glad she was there. I’m glad the baby is fine. Epiny, the attack will come like this. The Specks will slip into Gettys Town very late at night. Some will stay in the town, to fire buildings there. Others will disable the sentries and come into the fort. They are targeting key structures to burn, the warehouses, the barracks, the mess hall, the headquarters, and especially the prison for the workers. But they plan to burn as many homes as they can, also. You will be in danger, you and your baby. And Amzil and the children and Spink. After the first attack, things will die down. The Specks will seem to retreat. But it’s a trick. They’ll wait until everyone is out and fighting the fires, and then they’ll come back.”
“I can’t worry. That’s the beauty of it, Nevare. I know I should worry, but I just can’t. It feels nice not to worry, Nevare. So nice.” She made a tiny effort, curling her fingers to tug her blankets closer. “Nevare. In autumn, when the fear stopped and I thought you were dead, I sent your book to my father. To put with your father’s books. I tied a string around it and added a note, to say it should not be opened for fifty years. To protect everyone you wrote about.”
“What?” I was horrified. Then, with an immense effort, I pushed my own concern aside. I tried to speak gently but firmly to her. “Epiny, you need to wake up now. You need to warn Spink and the rest of the household. You need to pack whatever you might need in case you must flee. Have you warm clothes and food you can take?”
She sighed and shifted in her dreamless state. “Amzil’s little one is sick. She mustn’t go outside. I hope the baby doesn’t catch it. She’s such a good baby, such a good little sleeper.”
“Epiny.” I spoke more slowly now, trying not to despair. “Is Spink nearby?”
“He’s sleeping in the other room. He made a bed there, so I could have Solina here by me. He’s so thoughtful.” I felt her smile. “We had post. Such good fortune, to have a delivery come through in the winter. Good news from Spink’s people. The water cure. That doctor, that one from the Academy? He believed my letter and he went himself to Bitter Springs to take some of the water back to Old Thares. He stopped one outbreak of plague with some of it. And made some of the cadets at the Academy better, just like the water made Spink better. So. Now everyone is going to Bitter Springs to bathe and take the cure, and other people are buying water to take home with them. It has made their fortune, Nevare. Spink and I are so happy for them.”
Even drugged with laudanum, there was no stopping Epiny once she started talking. I broke in before she could start rambling again. “Call Spink, Epiny. Tell him what I told you.”
“Told me.”
“About the Specks and the attack.”
“He’s sleeping now. He’s so tired. I told him to try the laudanum, but he said no. He thinks it’s good for me to get this rest. He thinks it’s good for the baby that I’m so calm now.”
“Epiny, I have to go now.” My supply of magic was dwindling. “You have to remember this dream. You have to tell Spink to warn everyone.”
“Are you going to come and see the baby soon?”
“You have to warn Spink. Warn everyone. It’s urgent!”
“Urgent,” she repeated listlessly, and then I felt her rally a bit. “Father was so angry, Nevare. About the book.”
Shame choked me and I could make no reply. Yet at the same time, a most peculiar sensation came over me, a sense of the completion of a great circle. I had known that this would happen. I’d always known it, from the time I first set pen to the paper that my uncle had sent me in my beautiful soldier-son journal. I had always known that somehow it would go back to him, and that the consequences of what I had written there would grind my future into powder. It was a strange feeling to realize that from the beginning, I had been documenting my disgrace for all to know. It was almost a relief, now that it was done and over. Epiny was still speaking in her dreamy singsong way.
“He told my mother she had no right, that it was his name she was risking. She said the Queen would never know, would never bother to find it out. She said a fortune was at stake, and he should not let his dignity cripple him. Hadn’t he brought you into our home? Hadn’t he married me off to a common soldier, like an innkeeper’s daughter? Father was so wroth. He will speak to your father. He said. He said…” Her voice trailed away and her touch turned to moonlight on my hands, and then a cloud covered even that. She was barely there.
“Epiny.” I sighed, and let go of our feeble contact.
I hovered, a mote in Soldier’s Boy’s awareness, a sort of Gernian conscience that he paid no heed to. I wanted to agonize over my soldier-son journal. I hated all I had written there, hated myself for being so stupid as to write it. Too late. What was shame to me now, a dead man, a Speck, a renegade mage against my own people? Too late to think of my good name. I had no name. What I did have was a tiny remnant of my stolen magic. Epiny had been my best hope. We’d been joined by the magic before and I had been certain I could walk into her dreams. If she hadn’t given in to the dark depression of the creeping magic, if she hadn’t taken the Gettys Tonic of laudanum and rum, I could have been certain of my warning being heeded. But she had. The magic had outwitted me again.
I thought I had strength enough for one more try. I would reach for Spink. I had never dream-walked to him, but I knew him well. He might dismiss Epiny’s words as a strange dream; if I touched him, mind to mind, he would know it was real. I knew he would have a hard time convincing the upper echelons of the military command at Gettys to heed his warning as it was; better not to have Epiny saying that the warning was based on her dream.
I summoned all I could recall of Spink, every facet of him, from the boyish and enthusiastic cadet he had been at the Academy to the weary and harassed lieutenant and husband he had become at Gettys. I reached hard for the moments of contact that we had shared in that otherworld we had walked when the Speck fever had taken us both. Back then, he had been more willing than I to accept the reality of that episode. I only hoped that if I could reach him, he would still be as open-minded.
Dream-walking to Spink was not like traversing terrain. I felt I was a needle plunged endlessly through folded bolts of fabric, trying to find a single thread. Trying to make this new contact was more draining than reaching Epiny had been. Epiny had always been more open to magic than the rest of us. But I found Spink, and with every bit of my remaining strength, I forced myself into his dream. It was a dreary place. He dreamed of digging a hole in stony earth. He was in the hole and had to throw the shovelfuls of rocky soil up over his head. Half the time, earth and gravel cascaded back down on him. He was in the bottom of the hole, trying to get his shovel point under a large stone, and then suddenly I was there with him. He didn’t flinch or start. Dreams adjust quickly to intruders. I found a shovel in my hands. Spink looked up, wiped gritty sweat from his face, and said, “You dug your hole and I dug mine. And here we are, stuck in what we’ve made of our lives.”
“Spink. Put your shovel aside and listen to me. We are in your dream, but what I’m going to say to you is real.”
I took a risk in telling him that we were in his dream. He looked at me, and I saw his eyes focus, and in the same instant, the dream around us began to disintegrate, watercolors lifting away from a painted card. I seized him by the shoulder and believed him there as hard as I could. I gripped his bony shoulders, felt the rocky soil under my feet, deliberately smelled the smells of soil and sweat. Spink stabilized but continued to gawk at me.
“Little time,” I said, even as I felt the magic running out. “Epiny had a dream, too. Make her tell you. Specks will attack Gettys late tomorrow night and try to burn everything. Spink, don’t forget this, don’t doubt it.” I was gripping his shoulders as tightly as I could, as if to make the contact more real. Inspired, I suddenly seized his hand and forced it to his face. I pressed hard, driving his nails into his cheek and tore down, scratching him. “The warning is real, real as pain. Take action. Extra guards, a night patrol, guns primed and ready, iron shot—”
I didn’t know at what point my pilfered magic ran out. I only knew that the Spink I was speaking to was suddenly emptiness. I blinked and he was gone and I was back inside Soldier’s Boy. He was sleeping heavily now, in the same deep, desperate sleep I’d sometimes taken when I dove after rest that had eluded me for most of the night. I thought it over and then pressed softly against his awareness, telling him how safe he was and that all was well. With every particle of my being, I willed him to sleep long and late.
In that, I was successful. By the time he awoke, half of the short winter day was spent. He opened his eyes to grayness and cold. It took him a few moments to realize where he was, and then he sat up with a shout. Not far away, Jodoli slept on. Some of the men were up and moving about, but most of the wakeful ones were huddled about the fires, talking quietly. At his shout, all heads turned to him, and some of the warriors stood up.
“Why was not I awakened!” he bellowed. The anger that filled him was more fueled than disarmed by the knowledge that it was unjust. “This force should have been on its feet, armed and ready to march, hours ago. This delay puts all our plans at risk!”
Jodoli was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. Firada was already in motion, gesturing at his feeders to hurry faster as they hastily dished up the warmed food and brought him hot tea poured from a steaming kettle. There was every indication that Jodoli’s feeders had been awake for quite some time, in order to have all things ready when the Great One awakened. He turned and saw that even Olikea, morose as she had been, was awake and dressed.
“Why did no one awaken me?” he demanded again, and I cringed for him at how childish he sounded. I think he sensed my disdain for him. He thrust his legs out from under the blankets and gestured angrily for his clothing to be brought to him. He was suddenly realizing how far he had wandered from the soldier’s path, and how telling that might be today. Impatiently he tugged his garments from his feeders’ grasps and put them on, grunting as he did so. He had to hold his breath to jerk his fur-lined boots up over his calves but he did so, and then stood. “We eat, we pack, and then we march. We have to be at the forest’s edge at the road’s end by dark. There, we will have to wait until full dark before we go into the town to attack. So eat and drink well now, and see that your water skins are filled. This will be the last hot meal you get before we join battle. Take a little food with you, but only what you can eat while moving. Get ready!”
I was pleased that they were getting off to such an uneven start, but tried to keep my satisfaction small and hidden. Even as I watched the cold and sometimes sullen warriors go about their preparation, I wondered how much of her dream Epiny would remember through a mind clouded with laudanum and hoped that Spink would heed the urgency of my message. I would have no way of knowing if my desperate warning had worked until the forces joined battle. Until then, I tried to keep the gnawing of my doubts to myself, even as I fed Soldier’s Boy uncertainty about the readiness of his troops. Over and over, I summoned up strong memories of how quickly the Academy cadets had fallen out before dawn each morning. I recalled for him the times when, as a boy, I’d watched the reinforcements for the eastern strongholds riding or marching past my father’s holdings. The men, even at the end of a long day’s march, had kept their lines straight and their heads up. He watched his warriors gather in straggling groups about their recently appointed leaders. There was no uniformity in how they were outfitted or supplied, no precision in how they gathered, and very little evidence of military discipline at all. All those elements were essential to a battle campaign as I knew of them, and they lacked them all. Their only strong asset was one that made my blood run cold. There was hatred and vengeance gleaming on every face, and the will not just to kill but to slaughter was evident in the harsh promises and cold wagers they placed with their fellows. There would be many deaths tonight. My mind wandered to the old god Orandula, and then as quickly I jerked my thoughts away from him. I did not want my attention to summon him, did not want him to construe the coming slaughter as an offer or bargain with him.
Yet as Soldier’s Boy’s ragtag force formed up to be quick-walked by the Great Ones down to the forest edge, I could not help but see the hand of the balancer in all of this. Could hatred and determination be a counterweight to organization and experience? I suddenly understood something about the old god of death and why he was also the god of balances. One could always make two things balance by moving the fulcrum. I had the sudden uneasy notion that I was the fulcrum that had been moved.
Soldier’s Boy bid Olikea farewell. All of the feeders except Dasie’s guards would remain here with Kinrove and Jodoli. From now on, the warriors under the leadership of Dasie and Soldier’s Boy would go on alone. Again, the few horses we had were led rather than ridden. I had never seen Dasie mounted on her cart horse. It pleased me to think she would be a poor equestrian.
The late morning and fading light of the short afternoon passed in the flickering landscapes of quick-walk. The snow was deep in the places where it had sifted down through the trees, and the cold was enough to crack the lips and stiffen faces. More than a few of our warriors expressed discomfort and then dismay as the march went on. I think some of them would have turned back, but the advantage of the quick-walk meant that they must remain with us, or face several lonely days of hiking back to our encampment. Those who might have otherwise deserted stayed with us, but gracelessly.
For the first time since Dasie had entered our lives, she was without her iron bearer. Kinrove and Jodoli had refused to even attempt to quick-walk anyone carrying iron, saying that even to have that metal nearby disrupted their magic severely. I do not know if she feared Soldier’s Boy might seize the opportunity for revenge or not. Like Soldier’s Boy, she had left her new feeders behind, but her two original feeders, attired now as warriors, walked to either side of her. The bronze swords they carried looked every bit as deadly as iron, and the men who carried them appeared confident and competent, for they needed to worry only about their swordsmanship, not about any accidental discomfort or injury to their Great One. Behind her, a warrior led the hulking horse she would ride into battle. For now, he functioned as a pack beast, laden with pitch torches.
Today both Soldier’s Boy and Dasie toiled through a day of walking that was a trial in itself for heavy folk who had grown unaccustomed to exerting themselves. The problem for Soldier’s Boy was not the cold, but the heat his own body generated from the exercise. He wanted to avoid sweating, for well he knew how quickly his body would chill once they had stopped moving, but there was little he could do about it. Again, I experienced that sensation of lurching and halting along as the magic shoved us. It was not pleasant, but I enjoyed knowing that Soldier’s Boy shared my discomfort.
Night came swiftly. The last bit of our journey we made in darkness. It was unnerving to be magically moved forward through a landscape that became, with every few steps, darker and colder. When we reached the forest of the ancestor trees that bordered on the end of the King’s Road, our unnatural journey abruptly halted. In the dark and the cold, the men and the dozen or so horses suddenly milled, speaking in low voices as they located one another in the dark. Dasie had planned well. She unloaded torches, and as her magic woke each one to flame, they were passed around.
The giant trees around us were heavily burdened with snow, but had effectively blocked most of it from reaching the forest floor. There were drifts in a few places, but for the most part, it was less than ankle deep. Fallen branches were gathered, and in a short time, a score of scattered campfires leapt and crackled in the darkness. The light made monsters of the passing shadows and the updraft of heat stirred the branches overhead, prompting a few to drip or suddenly spring free of a heavy load of snow, showering the soldiers below. Soldier’s Boy moved purposefully from fire to fire, talking to the men he had put in charge of his troops. Some were effective as sergeants; they’d taken charge of their troops and seen that they’d drunk from their water and eaten sparingly of their supplies. Others were more like bully boys, proud of being chosen to lead but, in their pride, pushing and harrying their warriors rather than truly leading. He should have let them choose their own leaders, I thought to myself. It would have been more in keeping with their Speck traditions. Then I was surprised that I could see how his overlayering of Gernian military tradition did not fit their culture but he could not. I wondered again at how much both of us had blended.
After he had made his circuit, he came back to his own fireside. The warriors from his kin-clan were there. He wasted a few long moments wishing that he had begun to cultivate them earlier and truly make them his own. He smiled at them and asked if they had any concerns, but could scarcely focus on their responses. In a few hours, his life might depend on them, and he barely knew them or any of the men in his command. He was no better, I let him know, than the distant officers I’d served under at Gettys. I was merciless as I gouged at his self-confidence and his ability to command. As I did so, I wondered if he had done the same to me during my long days as my father’s slave and prisoner. Had he been part of my inability to tear myself free and find a new life for myself? Even the idea that such was a possibility fanned my wrath to flames. I felt no compunction at all as I undermined his self-worth with every doubt I could imagine, with every recrimination from the past that I could unearth. I reminded him, over and over, that he’d been lazy and neglected his strength and fitness, that he’d wasted opportunities to win his men’s loyalty, to teach them discipline, to make them understand the necessity of drill and swift obedience.
He glanced once up the hillside toward Lisana’s tree. I knew how badly he longed to climb the steep snowy slope, so that for even a moment he could rest his brow against her tree and let her know that he loved and missed her still. But I daunted him with a reminder of how cold and arduous such a climb would be, and finished it with the idea that if he hadn’t slept in like a lazy pig, perhaps there would have been enough time for him to attempt it. But now it was out of the question. He’d barely have enough time to ready his half-trained troops for their suicide mission.
I knew the instant I pushed him too hard. He recognized my influence and suddenly I was at arm’s length from him. I found out something else then. He did not banish me as he had before because he did not want to expend that much strength and attention on me. I could not contain my joy to find that it had cost him to hold me in that limbo, cost him more than he dared spend on me now.
Night deepened around us, and with it came the cold, an absence rather than a presence. All drew closer to the small fires that did little more than taunt winter. They dared not build them big enough to cast out any real heat or light. As it was, Soldier’s Boy scowled at them, hoping that no errant hunter or night wanderer would see them and report them.
Never had an evening stretched so long. When the time to venture toward the town finally came, Soldier’s Boy ordered that Clove be brought to him. The lack of a mounting block made climbing up on the patient horse’s back an undignified and lengthy process. Dasie did little better with her horse. Clove at least was accustomed to bearing a heavy rider. Once I was up, he shuddered his coat as if settling himself and then stood quiet. Dasie’s cart horse mount disliked the fuss and noise of the warriors who helped their Great One up on her horse’s back. Once Dasie was up, the mare sidled and then, as Dasie gathered her reins too tightly, backed up nearly into one of the groups huddling around a fire. Soldier’s Boy had to ride to her aid, and then waste precious moments in giving her a lesson in basic horsemanship. Although he had not planned it that way, he decided that he would ride at the front of his warriors, with her just behind him and flanked by two of the warriors who were more experienced with horses.
He rode Clove through the camp, savoring the height and command that the big horse gave him at the same time he cringed from the aches and strain that riding was awakening in his softened body. He spoke to his sergeants, making sure that they had checked their men’s supplies. The torches were the most critical to his plan, and each man carried three. Some of the warriors would carry fire pots, clay pots lined with sand that held coals. If Dasie’s magic could not prevail against the iron present in the town and fort, the torches would be kindled from the fire pots. He’d allowed each warrior to select his own choice of weapon. Some carried short swords, others bows with full quivers on their backs, some had spears or long knives, and a very few carried only slings. He formed them up in two columns, spaced his horses out among them, and then rode back to the head of his forces. From here to Gettys, they would travel on their own feet. Both Kinrove and Jodoli had told him that their strength for the quick-walk had been taxed to its limits, canceling his original plans to appear suddenly just outside the town. They could not move the force magically toward a place so saturated with iron. Soldier’s Boy wished it were otherwise, that they could simply appear in the vicinity of the fort and likewise vanish again. Yet he knew he would have to work with the limitations set on him. The night was fully black around them when he finally lifted his hand and said, in a low voice, “Forward!”
The word was passed back, and like a feeble caterpillar, the two columns began to move unevenly. He led them on, to the very edge of the forest, and there he paused briefly. The clearing and beyond it the road were coated with smooth snow. There was a bit of light from a quarter moon and the myriad stars in the black winter night. The white ribbon of road seemed to gather the light to itself and then offer it up to the sky again. There was, as Jodoli had predicted, little sign of the effects of my desperate magic. Most of it had been repaired already. But that was actually all right. They’d cleared the road before the snows fell. It made Soldier’s Boy’s path plain. He would lead his men down the very road that had threatened to destroy them, and when they reached Gettys, they would turn that death and destruction back on those who had brought it.
He kneed Clove and the big horse stepped out easily from the sheltering trees. He negotiated the uneven earth of the clearing under its blanket of smoothing snow and then reached the road itself. The unbroken snow and crust was knee-high on the big horse. With a sinking heart, Soldier’s Boy realized that he’d have to break trail for Dasie and her guard and for all the troops that followed him. He steeled his will, sat his horse well, and urged him forward into the night.